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Author: James McCommons
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603582592
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
During the tumultuous year of 2008--when gas prices reached $4 a gallon, Amtrak set ridership records, and a commuter train collided with a freight train in California--journalist James McCommons spent a year on America's trains, talking to the people who ride and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak system. Organized around these rail journeys, Waiting on a Train is equal parts travel narrative, personal memoir, and investigative journalism. Readers meet the historians, railroad executives, transportation officials, politicians, government regulators, railroad lobbyists, and passenger-rail advocates who are rallying around a simple question: Why has the greatest railroad nation in the world turned its back on the very form of transportation that made modern life and mobility possible? Distrust of railroads in the nineteenth century, overregulation in the twentieth, and heavy government subsidies for airports and roads have left the country with a skeletal intercity passenger-rail system. Amtrak has endured for decades, and yet failed to prosper owing to a lack of political and financial support and an uneasy relationship with the big, remaining railroads. While riding the rails, McCommons explores how the country may move passenger rail forward in America--and what role government should play in creating and funding mass-transportation systems. Against the backdrop of the nation's stimulus program, he explores what it will take to build high-speed trains and transportation networks, and when the promise of rail will be realized in America.
Author: James McCommons
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603582592
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
During the tumultuous year of 2008--when gas prices reached $4 a gallon, Amtrak set ridership records, and a commuter train collided with a freight train in California--journalist James McCommons spent a year on America's trains, talking to the people who ride and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak system. Organized around these rail journeys, Waiting on a Train is equal parts travel narrative, personal memoir, and investigative journalism. Readers meet the historians, railroad executives, transportation officials, politicians, government regulators, railroad lobbyists, and passenger-rail advocates who are rallying around a simple question: Why has the greatest railroad nation in the world turned its back on the very form of transportation that made modern life and mobility possible? Distrust of railroads in the nineteenth century, overregulation in the twentieth, and heavy government subsidies for airports and roads have left the country with a skeletal intercity passenger-rail system. Amtrak has endured for decades, and yet failed to prosper owing to a lack of political and financial support and an uneasy relationship with the big, remaining railroads. While riding the rails, McCommons explores how the country may move passenger rail forward in America--and what role government should play in creating and funding mass-transportation systems. Against the backdrop of the nation's stimulus program, he explores what it will take to build high-speed trains and transportation networks, and when the promise of rail will be realized in America.
Author: United States. Congress
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781983796678
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
Expanding passenger rail service : field hearing before the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, first session, June 22, 2009 (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania).
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
Author: United States House of Representatives
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781697961317
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 162
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Book Description
Expanding passenger rail service: field hearing before the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, first session, June 22, 2009 (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania).
Author: Elizabeth Pinkston
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 56
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Book Description
Introduction: Amtrak's current situation -- A brief history of Amtrak -- Amtrak's role in intercity transportation -- The basic economics of passenger rail -- Policy options for the future of passenger rail -- Appendix. Amtrak's interconnections with freight and commuter railroads.
Author: Jayetta Z. Hecker
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 9780756725457
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 46
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Book Description
In recent years, facing the continuing deterioration of its financial condition and its attempt to eliminate its need for federal operating assistance by Dec. 2002, the Nat. Railroad Passenger Corp. (Amtrak) undertook a number of actions intended to improve its financial condition., including planning to implement new routes and expand services (called the Network Growth Strategy) on the freight railroad tracks over which Amtrak operates. This report examines: (1) the status of the Network Growth Strategy, (2) Amtrak's estimates of expected mail and express revenue, and (3) Amtrak's success in obtaining freight railroads' agreement to allow it to expand service over their tracks. Charts, tables and map.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Energy conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
Author: David Randall Peterman
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781478182696
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 36
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Book Description
The provision of $8 billion for intercity passenger rail projects in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA; P.L. 111-5) reinvigorated efforts to expand intercity passenger rail transportation in the United States. The Obama Administration subsequently announced that it would ask Congress to provide $1 billion annually for high speed rail (HSR) projects. This initiative was reflected in the President's budgets for FY2010 through FY2013. Congress approved $2.5 billion for high speed and intercity passenger rail in FY2010 (P.L. 111-117), but zero in FY2011 (P.L. 112-10) and FY2012 (P.L. 112-55). In addition, the FY2011 appropriations act rescinded $400 million from prior year unobligated balances of program funding. There are two main approaches to building high speed rail (HSR): (1) improving existing tracks and signaling to allow trains to reach speeds of up to 110 miles per hour (mph), generally on track shared with freight trains; and (2) building new tracks dedicated exclusively to high speed passenger rail service, to allow trains to travel at speeds of 200 mph or more. The potential costs, and benefits, are relatively lower with the first approach and higher with the second approach. Much of the federal funding for HSR to date has focused on improving existing lines in five corridors: Seattle-Portland; Chicago-St. Louis; Chicago-Detroit; the Northeast Corridor (NEC); and Charlotte-Washington, DC. Most of the rest of the money is being used for a largely new system dedicated to passenger trains between San Francisco and Los Angeles, on which speeds could reach up to 220 mph. Plans for HSR in some states were shelved by political leaders opposed to the substantial risks such projects entail, particularly the capital and operating costs; the federal funds allocated to those projects were subsequently redirected to other HSR projects. Estimates of the cost of constructing HSR vary according to train speed, the topography of the corridor, the cost of right-of-way, and other factors. Few if any HSR lines anywhere in the world have earned enough revenue to cover both their construction and operating costs, even where population density is far greater than anywhere in the United States. Typically, governments have paid the construction costs, and in many cases have subsidized the operating costs as well. These subsidies are often justified by the social benefits ascribed to HSR in relieving congestion, reducing pollution, increasing energy efficiency, and contributing to employment and economic development. It is unclear whether these potential social benefits are commensurate with the likely costs of constructing and operating HSR. Lack of long-term funding represents a significant obstacle to HSR development in the United States. The federal government does not have a dedicated funding source for HSR, making projects that can take years to build vulnerable to year-to-year changes in discretionary budget allocations.~
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 132
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Book Description
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Subcommittee on Railroads
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
